Fetch 5 not sending SITE DIRSTYLE (4 posts)

jameso Member

I support three clients who use Fetch for FTP on Mac OSX. Two of them are using Fetch 4 (OS 10.3.9) and love it. Third has newest Mac and Fetch 5 (OS 10.4).
The client on Fetch5 cannot connect reliably and has unsuccessful or very slow upload results to the same Windows servers that the Fetch4 machines connect to. She is located at some distance so I can't easily get in front of her machine.

She turned off OSX firewall. Tried InterarchyFTP with same problems. She CAN connect beautifully to a Unix server with Fetch5

Reading and comparing the transcripts from her machine and one of the Fetch4 machines, I notice that the SITE DIRSTYLE command is missing from the Fetch5 transcript. IIRC, this is necessary for windown2003 servers?
What IS in her transcript is a TYPE A command that I don't see in the Fetch4 transcript. Isn't that setting the file type to ASCII?

jameso Member

Jim Matthews Administrator

Fetch 5 does not send the SITE DIRSTYLE command because it understands both styles of file lists sent by Windows servers (SITE DIRSTYLE switches between them). So I don't think that's part of this problem.

Has this user tried uploading with Fetch 4? My guess is that she would see the same problem.

The TYPE A command does set the transfer type to ASCII (aka Text). Fetch 4 does not send it because servers are supposed to start in text mode, but some don't, so we changed that in Fetch 5.

My best guess is that this user has a networking problem (either in hardware or her connection to the Internet) that keeps her from uploading files (using any software). You might ask her to try uploading files to the incoming folder of ftp.fetchsoftworks.com (leave the Username and Password fields blank to connect, and ignore the permission error when you enter the incoming folder). My prediction is that she'll see the same problem, indicating that it isn't a server issue.

If that's the problem she could ask her ISP for help; it may be a problem with the DSL or cable modem, or the ISP's network. Another thing she could try is changing her computer's MTU (maximum transmission unit); sometimes that works around problems of this sort. Let me know if you'd like more information about that option.

jameso Member

Thanks for the quick reply!

Just wanted to add that she has a windows machine right next to her that she uses sucessfully with a Windows FTP client. Right now, her workaround is to email the files to herself and upload with the window machine. That's why I didn't suspect the cable modem connection.

Both win and mac have VPN clients running, can't connect to the servers w/o VPN

I will forward your instructions about trying to upload to your site as a test.